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Thursday, 12 January 2017

European Economic and Demographic Considerations related to Refugees' Policy

After two decades of the establishment of the European Union, some of its countries[1] seem to have achieved huge financial surpluses[2] compared with the others who fell deeply into debt or crises. While the latter are striving to find solutions for their social and economic troubles, the “winner countries” are seeking out many alternative options on where to invest these surplus amounts.

On the other hand, these countries suffer from lack of youth generation as a result of the culture, mentality and the quality of life prevalent in these countries. For these countries, investing in “welcoming a young generation” and in welcoming children and “fathers and mothers” who would produce and grow these children is one of the most profitable uses to which the surpluses can be put.

According to the Keynesian theory, choosing this option would enhance the economies of these countries (because the refugees’ marginal propensities to consume are the highest).

Investing in the newcomers means that these governments support the essential sectors in their economies, namely, the real estate sector, education, healthcare, and retail sectors, as most of the government spend on refugees will go immediately to these sectors, along with other cash flows from different other sources (such as the money the refugees might bring with them, the help that might come from international organizations or the donator countries such as the Arabic gulf countries, etc.).

Before the recent flow of refugees, these countries used to rely on other sources to solve the lack of youth, either by joining more countries under the European Union or attracting laborers from non-EU countries like Serbia or Turkey. It can be tricky for the politicians to talk frankly about this topic, or to declare their real plans publicly for various imaginable reasons; political, human, diplomatic etc. That is why they address it implicitly, or sometimes in a manipulative way. The wars in the Middle Eastern region represent a rare “chance” in this respect. The huge surplus and the cultural qualities of the nations going through one form of war or another fit the plan more than any other area (the tendency to raise big families, the obligation to care for family members, less demanding lifestyle standards). Besides, the refugees’ countries are ruined, and the chance that they will return to their countries is extremely little. In the governments’ and politicians’ calculations, that means better results at less cost!

That all can explain why EU politicians prefer to look like helpless “victims” of the situation, rather than the organizers of it, with all the catastrophic consequences of this irresponsible and immoral attitude.

Individuals and societies are naturally more suspicious about this game for various reasons - cultural, religious, economic etc. - but the majority of the dominating media, along with some international organization officers and institute researchers are backing the politicians in their manipulative mission of misleading the masses and hiding facts from the public or neglecting sufficient investigations, either innocently or dishonestly, with either good intentions or malicious ones.

The fact that politicians and governments are trying to achieve two different goals under one title would almost lead to failure in both. The governments are trying to create unreal and virtual job opportunities, which lead to a vulnerable economy based on unreal facts and policies. Further, the politicians tend to adopt the “quick solutions” which back them in election and keep their image acceptable, while accumulating and delaying facing the crisis bravely and frankly[3].

On the other hand (the integration one), these very politicians are far from adopting sharp and clear policies geared towards the new comers. This has in turn led to fraction in the European community which used to live peacefully for decades and dreamt of real unification. Choosing to believe “refugee crisis” as the reason is far from the right view, as Europe has been welcoming refugees for ages, but the problem lies precisely in the irresponsible conduct of the politicians and officers who are deliberately neglecting to manage and calm the European individuals properly.

The media is playing the dirty role in this issue, dividing the people into “right racism” and “cool tolerant”, which is not the truth, as the majority of Europeans were okay with immigrants until 2015 when some governments adopted these ambiguous policies without sending enough signals and adopting sufficient procedures to guarantee the individuals’ security and their kids’ rights to a stable economy and welfare or at least to explain properly and responsibly to reduce the their citizens’ concerns, irrespective of whether or not these concerns are real or imagined.

By dividing the people and categorizing them by media, Europe is now a victim project with symptoms that don’t differ from the Middle East scenario, where half of each nation stopped listening to the other half, seeing each other in the eyes of “devils-Angels”[4] binary (devil circle). (See last essays)

It was clear during the refugee crisis that journalists who wrote and spoke in “dividing” language that polarized the European nations and created fractions were promoted heavily. Instead of building a relationship between the nation’s or the continent’s components based on frank dialogue, the media took these components to a situation very much resembling the Syria case, where each half of the nation or continent sees the other part as the devil and the polarized situation was intensified to a serious degree.

Suddenly the media became human and tolerant, giving some nations and areas in Europe angelic adjectives/characteristics, while labeling other European Union countries and parties as the “devils”.. This brings to our mind the Syrian case where the media suddenly became the “freedom and democracy” guardian after ages of praising dictatorship, and the result was dividing the previously singular nation into equal separate fractions who see no chance to live with one another anymore, and are ready to fight with no readiness to hear or bargain with the other party. This is an example of what deliberate misinformation and media polarization can do.

It is not true that the refugee crisis and its troubles occurred against the will of politicians or without their knowledge. EU politicians are armed with thousands of consultants and academic studies to support them to protect EU residents from crises and solve social issues, but they continue to inform citizens that they are helpless and can do nothing about the current situation. From this perspective, the refugee crisis is not just a result of the wars in the Middle East, the behavior of European politicians has also been an essential creator of the crisis.

[2] Up to 18.5 billion Euros in Germany, 1st half of 2016 (https://www.destatis.de).

[3] Don't get me wrong I am not against welcoming some kind of people or to interfere in the European policy to advise them on how to solve their problems, nor to tell the decision makers what kind of people they should host or not, the purpose of this point is to indicate the serious role of the media in emphasizing the gap between the nation's fractions instead of building dialogue based on fairness and transparency, and to state the lack of justice which is caused by the random and irresponsible way of conducting and implementing these policies.

[4] (In Austria for instance, where the right wing used to represent only 25% of the population since World War II. In just 2 years, this 25% jumped up to around 50% after it had been stable for half a century!). The media’s still going ahead dividing the society to 2 equal parties, each one listens to the whole world except their counterpart and partner in the land!